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Kia ora koutou,
Many moons ago, when I "left school forever" (and then eventually boomeranged!), my first role was facilitating Professional Learning across the Wellington region, supporting primary, intermediate, and lower secondary teachers - mostly in writing. I was part of a nationwide team of eight, bringing together a nice balance of primary and secondary backgrounds.
We were tasked with creating National Expectations across Years 0–10, which was a completely novel concept at the time. Starting entirely from scratch, I can still picture us spreading student writing samples all over my living room floor, debating back and forth until we were quite pleased with the result. We filed them neatly into hard-copy ringbinders - this was right at the turn of the millennium, after all! - packed them into our bags, and boarded a plane for our first team gathering in Auckland.
A revelation was waiting for us.
"What do you mean these pieces can't be at this level?"
Our secondary teammates put it bluntly "You're leaving no room for Years 9 and 10 when NCEA expectations look like this!"
Yes, a massive penny-drop. What we set in the early years ripples right through the entire system - it's not just about small us - it's the big us!
Unfortunately, 26 years on, there is still far too much siloed thinking and a limited understanding of what comes before and after our own piece in the system.
That’s why it was such a pleasure to pop into the EBIS Open Day recently. Seeing our children lapping it up, looking comfortably at home, and hearing great feedback from parents who attended the Information Evening. It’s a relationship we genuinely want to reciprocate, and our door is always open for teachers to visit us in return - climb up the hill people!
Leading our Kāhui Ako over more recent years gave me a much deeper grasp of the current Literacy and Numeracy Core requirements in secondary schools. Holding that long-term view is so essential. Alongside the day-to-day, term-to-term, and cohort-to-cohort focus, we need to keep our eyes on the whole horizon. Education is a continuous journey from birth to ECE right through to upper secondary and beyond; no matter where you teach, knowing the "befores" and the "afters" makes a big difference.
This is exactly why we make a deliberate effort to stay connected with our local ECEs, EBIS, and our secondary colleagues wherever we can.
If you'd like to read more about the CAA Literacy and Numeracy corequisites, you can find further details here: https://ncea.education.govt.nz/literacy-and-numeracy-assessment-information
Ngā mihi nui
Jude
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